Karma
by demonicnargles
Summary: Each tailed beast had a power. Shukaku had sand. Kyuubi had luck. Good luck for himself, drained from his enemies. It was for this reason that Naruto was the luckiest man in the world, and his enemies the unluckiest.


Karma

Each tailed beast had a power. Shukaku had sand. Kyuubi had luck. Good luck for himself, drained from his enemies. It was for this reason that Naruto was the luckiest man in the world, and his enemies the unluckiest.

* * *

Despite never passing a single test or demonstrating the required jutsu, Naruto became a genin.

He didn't know any of the things that the instructors claimed were vital to success in the world, or the basics of packing light, or any other quite rudimentary ninja skill. All he had was the typical ninja speed and strength that was common to just about every student his age.

He was, naturally, failed out of the Academy, now for the second time, because he didn't know anything. Mizuki decided to use this to his advantage, and told Naruto to steal the scroll as an alternate way to become a genin.

So Naruto, never the smartest ninja, agreed.

Fortunately, the guards on duty that night were distracted, as was the birthday of one of them, and they had been drinking. Naruto was able to sneak in undetected.

And then he had to find the scroll, mixed in with all the hundreds of others in the library. Fortunately, the last person to have used it had left it sticking out of the rack, where it caught Naruto's attention almost immediately.

The Hokage came by, and Naruto was caught. Fortunately for Naruto, however, the Hokage had just been reading his favorite series, Icha Icha, and was actually just wandering the library daydreaming about it. So when Naruto decided to transform into a girl, that was all it took to push the Hokage over the edge, bleeding profusely from the nose as his fantasies seemingly came to life before his eyes.

Naruto escaped unhindered.

* * *

When Naruto arrived at the designated spot in the forest, Mizuki was nowhere to be found. So the young genin decided to read the scroll. It was very difficult going, but fortunately someone else had scrawled very simple instructions for one in the margin, and Naruto just copied the seals and chakra manipulation without reading all the harder theory and details about it. Fortunately, the only real drawback was the amount of chakra it took, which was no problem at all for Naruto.

Then Mizuki arrived, and asked for the scroll. But unfortunately for him, Iruka had caught on when Mizuki had bolted into the forest, and followed. Iruka warned Naruto about the scroll, and told him not to give it to Mizuki.

The traitor, seeing that his hopes for deception were lost, threw a large shuriken at Naruto. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to stabilize his stance on the branch he stood on, so not only was his weapon thrown so slowly that Iruka had time to get in front of it, but it was thrown so weakly that it didn't cause any serious harm, gruesome looks aside.

Mizuki, being a ninja, quickly caught himself before he fell of the branch, but unfortunately for him, Naruto and Iruka had already taken off.

Naruto was a genin, however, so he was not hard to track down. Transforming himself to look like Iruka, he told the idiot to give him the scroll.

Unfortunately, Naruto was actually Iruka in disguise, and Iruka knew that Mizuki was not Iruka, surprise, surprise.

Growing frustrated with this, Mizuki decided that he would just kill Iruka and _then_ go look for the stupid brat. But before he could do so, Naruto showed up, and declared that he would protect Iruka.

Mizuki rolled his eyes, and prepared to make mincemeat out of this overconfident genin. When several hundred clones appeared, he was still not too worried. Zero multiplied by a thousand is still zero. As the clones approached, Mizuki's luck ran out.

He experienced his first, and last, symptom of epilepsy, and had a seizure right right as the first clone punched him. Thrashing around randomly in hit fit, Mizuki never stood a chance.

And in a lucky break, Iruka had somehow decided that this whole situation merited Naruto's promotion to genin.

* * *

When Naruto first encountered Zabuza, his luck was better yet.

Kakashi was captured. Quickly coming up with a half-assed plan, Naruto transformed into a large windmill shuriken. Fortunately, Sasuke saw what the plan was, and threw it straight at Zabuza.

The mist-nin was one of the best, but unfortunately, today was not his best day. Despite years of experience, he somehow managed to miss the fact that the shuriken was henged, disillusioned with the most basic of all illusion techniques that even genin could overcome. He also missed that there was nowhere on or around Sasuke for the genin to have pulled out such a large weapon from hiding.

And unfortunately, he forgot to just use his sword, still in his free hand, to just deflect the shuriken. Instead, feeling a little lazy, he just jumped over it. When he heard the telltale _poof_ of the henge dispelling, Zabuza, despite years of training, flinched. He hesitated just long enough that he could not counter the kunai coming for his back.

So he decided that his best bet was to release his most powerful opponent so that he could avoid a single hit from a genin.

And for Zabuza, it only went downhill from there.

* * *

When they met again at the bridge, Zabuza told Haku to take care of the genin while he fought Kakashi.

Fortunately for Naruto, Haku had a problem with killing, and so he and Sasuke were actually doing quite well, as Haku had the far more difficult task of incapacitating them, while they were okay with killing Haku.

Nevertheless, Haku's skill won out, and they were soon trapped in the ice mirrors. Haku knew that he had them now. Unfortunately, it was at this exact time that Sasuke unlocked his Sharingan. Haku became confused as the little genin was suddenly able to see him, even with all his speed. So he attempted to incapacitate both of the little boys as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, he could only get Sasuke, as Naruto was constantly summoning clones who took the hit for him. And again, unfortunately, Naruto went into a towering rage when he mistakenly thought that Sasuke was dead.

When the fiery orange chakra erupted around the boy, Haku flinched. When the boy charged, fixing him with a wrathful gaze, Haku froze in terror, taking the punch without any defense.

Naruto relented once he saw who his opponent was, but it was too late for Haku, whose luck had run out. Seeing his master in danger, Haku used his super speed. Not to counter Kakashi, or to move Zabuza or to block the attack, or to do any number of intelligent things he could do. Instead, he moved in front of Zabuza and took the hit straight through the heart.

And then Zabuza, having stayed too long in Naruto's general presence, had a violent case of poor judgment. When Gato and his men arrived, Zabuza decided, not to run away, as he had lost he use of his arms, but instead, to attack a crowd of armed men with only a kunai held in his teeth.

Fortunately for Naruto, Zabuza was quite good at what he did, and took care of the men before inevitable succumbing to his wounds.

* * *

Again and again, Naruto lucked out of every situation he found himself in. When he took the written test for the Chuunin Exam, he had no idea how to solve the problems, and no clue about the purpose of the exam. Fortunately, the proctors decided that whoever stuck around for the final question obviously understood the purpose, as no one would hand in a blank exam and fail, when failure meant never getting the chance to become chuunin again. So when Naruto simply waited through without ever writing down an answer.

When they ran into Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, Naruto was able to go toe to toe with a sannin. Not because he was so good, or Orochimaru so rusty, but because Orochimaru's every decision was hampered by his awful luck. After a while of fighting, Orochimaru decided that he would just give up on killing the Uchiha's team, and just mark him and leave.

In the preliminaries, Naruto had no idea about what to eat or not to eat before a match, and so he didn't know enough to avoid eating foods that would hamper his ability to fight. Foods that might give him gas. Before his match, Naruto had eaten a breakfast burrito, eggs and salsa and refried beans and peppers and all. So when the unfortunate Kiba decided to attack from behind, he was greeted with the foulest thing he had ever smelled in his entire life, in the strongest concentration he had ever smelled anything. It was all he could do to keep from vomiting as he passed out.

When Naruto fought Neji, the prodigy didn't finish off Naruto while he had the chance. Instead, Naruto had the time to unseal his tenketsu with the Kyuubi's chakra, and then attack again. And again, when Neji blasted Naruto back with his Kaiten, he didn't go and make sure that Naruto was down, and was so sure of his victory that he never noticed, even with his vision that could _see through the ground_, that Naruto had tunneled to a point directly underneath him. Neji was completely surprised when Naruto burst forth and sucker-punched him right in the jaw.

Hiashi, who had been watching the match, groaned. Even from his perch in the stands, he had seen what Naruto was doing. What was wrong with Neji today?

And finally, when Gaara attacked, with instructions to lay waste to as much of the village as possible, he chose, instead, to attack a single blonde-haired genin with all his might. Unfortunately for him, Naruto was too fast to get caught in his sand, and eventually, Naruto defeated him.

* * *

When Naruto and Sasuke fought in the valley of the end, Sasuke aimed his chidori straight for the heart. Unfortunately, a sudden cramp caused him to miss, instead only piercing a lung.

* * *

When Naruto fought Kakazu, the allegedly immortal ninja was somehow fooled by the move that Naruto used in every situation: the Shadow Clone. Despite knowing all about, and seeing Naruto do it over and over, he managed to miss the moment when Naruto replaced himself with a clone, and snuck up behind with a Rasenshuriken.

* * *

And so it continued for the rest of his life. And one day, the council decided to vote on a replacement for Tsunade as Hokage. They had, a few weeks before, granted themselves the power to replace the Hokage, and to make their decision irreversible, and now were going to vote on it. Tsunade had managed to get Naruto's name included on the ballot, but every one of the elders was violently opposed to the idea of the demon being their leader, and so she knew they would never vote for him.

Fortunately for Naruto, his name was on the same line as Danzo's and the bubbles were placed beside the names, and the elders misread the ballots. The vast majority mistakenly voted for Naruto, thinking they had voted for Danzo. It was to their great chagrin that they discovered their error, and to their greater chagrin that they now realized that this decision was irreversible.

_The end_

* * *

Did you like it? Hate it? Confused by it? Clicked on this story by accident? Let me know.

-demonicnargles


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